Life at Chouteau’s trading post was dictated by the water level of the Missouri River and the seasons. From spring to fall, and in a rare break of good winter weather, steamboats brought passengers and eagerly awaited merchandise upriver. On their return, they dropped off furs and picked up passengers heading east.
The stresses of a challenging, changing river, government regulations, and illegal competition for Indian annuities resulted in some good and some not so good years. As spring gave way to summer, fear of malaria arose. When the fall "harvest" of furs arrived, the post boomed with activity, then settled in for a hard riverfront winter. With spring the cycle began anew.
As the wilderness yielded to settlement, the Chouteau family and business expanded. And Francois and Berenice, taking quill pens in hand, wrote the letters you can now read.
Cher Oncle, Cher Papa
Published by the
Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Kansas City
Letters offer glimpse into Chouteaus: Author and editor frame KC settlers
through writings
by MONROE DODD, Kansas City Star,
January 27, 2002
Review in the Missouri Historical Society's
Gateway Heritage
by Frederick A.
Hodes, Spring 2002,
22 # 4: 63
Review in the Kansas State Historical Society's
Kansas History: a journal of the Central Plains
by
WILLIAM
E. LASS, professor of history
(emeritus), Minnesota State University, Mankato, Summer 2002, 25 # 2:
168
Review in the Missouri State Historical Society's
Missouri Historical Review
Review in the State Historical Society
of Iowa's
Annuals of Iowa
by C. JOSEPH GENETIN-PILAWA,
a doctoral student at Michigan State University.
Winter 2005, 63 #
1: 66-67
Order from and make checks payable to:
Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Kansas City
302 Newcomb Hall, UMKC, 5123 Holmes Street, KCMO 64110-2499
Phone: (816) 235-1543 / Fax: (816) 235-5500 / Email: WHMCKC@umkc.eduOrders from individuals must be accompanied by check or money order. (Add $2.10 postage and handling per volume. Local residents add $1.75 sales tax per volume.)
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Contents
Key to Abbreviations vi
Illustrations and Maps vii
Foreword x
Acknowledgments xii
Chapter 1 Of Frontier, Furs, and Family 1
Chapter 2 “Filled with Respect and Affection”: The Early Letters 23
Chapter 3 Gains and Losses: A Balance Sheet 47
Chapter 4 New Faces on the Frontier 77
Chapter 5 At Home on the Chouteau Farm 109
Chapter 6 “We Have a Lot of Disappointment This Year....” 125
Chapter 7 End of the Pioneer Era 151
Chapter 8 Berenice’s Later Life 183
Appendixes
1 –
Confluence of
People and Place: The Chouteau Posts on the Missouri and Kansas Rivers
by
David
Boutros.
191
2 – Pierre
(Cadet) Chouteau Jr. to Gabriel (Seres) Chouteau, July 19, 1822.
(Subject: Where Gabriel (Seres) Chouteau will operate a post.)
205
3 – Pierre Menard to Francois Chouteau, 1829-1836. 207
4 – Pierre Menard
Chouteau to Pierre Menard, June 24, 1835.
(Subject: Pierre Menard Chouteau greets his grandfather, Pierre Menard.)
214
5 – Edmond
Francois (Gesseau) Chouteau to Pierre Menard, Jan. 15, 1836.
(Subject: Gesseau’s apology to his Grandfather Menard after being expelled from
school.) 215
6 – Facsimile of Francois Chouteau and Berenice Chouteau letters. 216
Pieces of the Puzzle: A Glossary of People, Places, and Things 219
Bibliography 269
Index 281
Contributors’ Biographies 304
Last revised: Tuesday, September 29, 2009
